Badin, Stephen T.

Badin, Stephen T. (Theodore)

(1768–1853) Catholic missionary; born in Orléans, France. Emigrating after the French Revolution, he studied at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Md., and became the first priest ordained in America (1793). The hardy, morally rigorous "apostle of Kentucky" labored for over two decades in the frontier region of the Middle West—almost singlehandedly in the early years. He bought land where Notre Dame University now stands and was buried there.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.